The Pursuit of
by A Very Neat Monster
Summary: Dexter and Debra’s pursuits bring them uncomfortably close to one another’s secrets. Post season 2, spoilers for seasons 1 and 2. Point of view: alternating between Deb and Dex. Strong M, primarily for violence. Brief reference to Dex/Rita. Showtime based
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** "The Pursuit of…"

**Pairing:** Brief reference to Dexter and Rita, but no "screen time" for Rita

**Rating:** M

**Summary:** Dexter and Debra's pursuits bring them uncomfortably close to one another's secrets. Set a few months after seasontwo. The point of view alternates between Debra and Dexter.

**Disclaimer:** The characters and premise of this story are owned by Showtime and Jeff Lindsay, not me. Check out the third season of _Dexter_, beginning on Showtime on September 28th, or Lindsay's _Darkly Dreaming Dexter_ for the real thing!

**General Notes:** My story is based on Showtime's version of _Dexter_. To break down the rating, I'd give this a strong M for violence, an M for language, and a very light T for sexual content (just a very brief reference). This story contains numerous spoilers for seasons one and two. Although I've been reading fanfiction in various fandoms for five or six years, this is the first work of fanfiction I've ever written. Reviews or comments of any kind are appreciated!

**Notes for This Chapter:** None.

--

**Chapter 1**

**Debra**

A year ago I'd have said LaGuerta was the last person I'd ever want to share drinks with on a Friday night, but, since the end of the Bay Harbor Butcher case, that was exactly what we'd done every week. Our friendship hadn't been intentional, and we were still too unalike and too continually at odds for it to be a peaceful one. We weren't the kind of friends that went on shopping dates or gossiped about coworkers. But everyone else was constantly giving her the sideways "there's the freak that trusted a serial killer" look I knew so well, and the shock of it all had left her a much more reserved person that I could respect, if not always like. And, of course, I'd been the only one to offer her any kind of support as she tried to commemorate Doakes's life. It had been sort of inevitable.

But it wasn't simple pity that made me accept her first invitation to go to the bar down the street after work one evening; I needed someone who understood what I'd gone through as much as she did, and LaGuerta was the only other person around who'd known a serial killer intimately. Plus the fact that the rest of the office seemed to feel I'd been sleeping with the enemy during my time with Lundy left me nearly as ostracized as LaGuerta.

So we found ourselves once again sitting in a tiny booth with a beer-stained table and half-finished drinks between us, assaulted alternately by the obnoxiously upbeat music playing through the speakers and the stink of too many sweaty bodies crowded into one place.

The conversation had fallen into a morose lull when she lifted her glass to her lips for a moment, seeming to steel herself. "I've been going through the case files on the Bay Harbor Butcher these past few weeks."

I winced.

"Yeah. Sure, that makes sense. I wouldn't tell anyone else—they wouldn't get it, you know?—but, fuck, I spent hours going through the files on the Ice Truck Killer after the case was closed. I kept trying to force myself to make what I was reading fit with my memories. Even after being strangled, tied up, and nearly hacked to pieces by Rudy, it took me a while to really accept that this monster and the man who had said and done all the right things and been so God damned perfect were the same person." I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. Even now, thinking of that night on the boat and afterwards sent a shiver under my skin despite the Miami heat.

"I think I know what you mean, but that's not why I'm doing this. Debra, James wasn't the Bay Harbor Butcher, I am absolutely certain of it." She must have seen the doubt in my face, because she hurriedly continued. "Just hear me out. I've gone through all the files and compared them to my own notes. Like I tried to tell everyone, he could not physically have been there to commit some of these murders! He was with me. I know my books aren't admissible as evidence now, but there are his service records, too—He was out of the country when some of these bodies were dumped."

"Maria…" She continued on, undaunted.

"But no, that wasn't enough for anyone. So I kept digging. I can't do anything more to show that it couldn't have been James who committed these murders, but if I could find evidence of the real killer, that might change things. There was no trial. Whoever did this is still out there and we can still make him pay. I can still clear James's name." Her voice, so fervent and determined throughout, wavered on the last few words. I'd never thought that I would be glad I had nearly been Rudy's last victim, but at least the experience had made it impossible for me to completely deny what he had been, even if I still struggled to make sense of it at times. I tried a logical approach.

"No bodies have been found since the case was closed."

"So he moved or found a better dumping ground."

"But the slides…"

"James was trying to get the slides tested at a lab in Haiti. They weren't his, I'm sure of it. He must have found out who the Bay Harbor Butcher was and taken them. We still know the killer is still one of our own, so James probably wanted proof before accusing him."

"Why wouldn't he just go straight to Lundy?" I tried, still feeling an internal twinge at speaking that name. She gave a short laugh with no humor in it.

"Because James could be really pigheaded. They're saying he had a need to dispense 'personal justice,' and that's true. He always did things on his own when he could, and he sometimes bent the rules to make things right. I was his partner; I know."

I hated to keep pushing this when she was already in so much pain, but the sooner she accepted what Doakes had been, the better it would be for her in the long run. LaGuerta had never struck me as someone who needed to be coddled, and she certainly never did anything to spare me. I might as well return the favor.

"There was a dismembered body found with him at that cabin." The trump card, I thought.

"I don't know exactly how to explain that yet, but I'm certain he was being framed. It's all too perfect. The killer is found dead by apparent suicide with his last victim conveniently right there? And a bag of murder weapons with his fingerprints all over them just happens to be picked up only a few feet off a pier at nearly the same time? But none of this is my point. It won't prove anything in anyone's mind, I know." I could hear the resigned frustration in her voice. "So it's not scenarios and alibis for the past murders I'm focusing on now. It's evidence of new murders. If I can show that the Bay Harbor Butcher is still active, everyone will have to realize that James is innocent."

I didn't know what to say before her blind faith in Doakes, so I dropped my gaze to the drink between my hands.

"Debra… will you help me? I'm not asking you to believe me yet, but I'll always be a step behind him if I keep trying to do this on my own. I'm done with the old files on the case. I need to find his new victims, and that means looking at the files of every murderer or suspected murderer that goes missing in Miami. It's impossible, I know, but I have to at least try, and I'll be twice as likely to track him down if you're with me on this. Please?"

I wanted to say no, told myself I should say no. Dragging this out would only make things more painful for her, not to mention working on this futile task in my spare time would pretty much put an end to any chance of me having a life outside the office for the foreseeable future. But the nearly beaten, helpless tone of her voice, so unlike the LaGuerta I'd known and hated for so long, got to me, and I found myself agreeing.

"A month. Ok? I'll help you for a month, but if nothing turns up by then…"

"Fine. That's plenty of time. This killer may be a monster, but he's also human—he's made some kind of mistake, and we'll find it." She was the most animated I'd seen her since the funeral.

I didn't share her certainty, but I nodded anyway.

"Thank you, Deb. Thank you." Her voice wavered again, but her eyes were steady.

--

It was obvious to everyone that LaGuerta had simply been going through the motions of her job since the federal finger was pointed at her former partner. And yet in some ways she was a better lieutenant than she had ever been in the past. After watching the thorough vilification of Doakes by the press—the faceless idea of a vigilante turned out to be easier for the papers and public to stomach than a flesh-and-blood man with a background in special ops and butchery—press conferences had lost all their appeal for her, as had the political games she'd once pursued with such ruthless enthusiasm. Now she oversaw the working of the precinct's cases with quiet efficiency, exercising her authority only when necessary in a largely hands-off approach that once would have been completely foreign to her nature.

But now I saw her attack the Bay Harbor Butcher case in her off hours with a passionate determination she'd never before shown for anything but climbing the ranks of the Miami PD.

We met after work three nights a week to go over the notes we'd made on the case files, and, despite my intentions, I found myself caught up in our work. I'd never have admitted it to her, but I, like everyone else, had initially suspected that LaGuerta might have tweaked her notes to provide Doakes with a more solid alibi. I knew how easy it was to blind yourself to the truth where love was concerned. After looking at her books, however, I was pretty certain she was being honest. It turned out the lieutenant had an anal streak that rivaled my brother's when it came to organization. I never would have guessed it by the fast-and-loose investigative style that had once been her signature. I tried to maintain some perspective, but her points seemed more and more convincing and her certainty increasingly infectious, even as we repeatedly came up empty handed as we searched the files for anything overlooked that might connect them to the Butcher.

That LaGuerta's promotion to lieutenant had been purely political had been an axiom around the precinct since the day it was announced, and I'd used numerous variations of the theme of "idiot" to describe her often enough behind her back. Her willingness to put on blinders and remain fixated on her own interpretation of events had been the bane of my existence for years, and her faith in Doakes was no different. Yet, if her investigative techniques lacked inspiration, even I had to admit that, on this particular case, she made up for that lack with a thoroughness to rival the best detectives in the precinct. I felt like I was in high school again as we filled books with scribbled notes and binders with photocopies made from case files, which we flagged with a rainbow of sticky notes.

We started by tracking down every member of the force that had left the precinct since the Butcher murders had seemingly stopped and investigating deeply enough to assure ourselves that none of them was our man—that was my idea, and I was proud that it had been something LaGuerta hadn't thought to do. To her credit, she accepted the idea without a belittling word. Fortunately, the number of Miami PD staff that had left in the past few months was small, and all of them had air-tight alibis for one or more of the Butcher murders.

Once we knew we wouldn't be wasting our time, we moved on to suspected murderers that had been released on technicalities, made deals for their freedom, or had been found innocent against all the expectations of the investigators. It was an enormous list, impossible even for two people to ever keep up with, but I spent hours each evening in front of my computer with piles of papers, attempting to trace the whereabouts of a selection pulled randomly from the files. Needless to say, most of them didn't appear to be eager to stick around Miami. If the Butcher was still active, he'd only be responsible for a tiny percentage of the suspects who'd gone missing. But I dutifully attempted to follow up on each lead, scouring the files and often the scenes themselves for any traces left by the most efficient serial killer Miami had ever known.

I knew the whole thing was a fool's errand, but, even after the deadline I'd given LaGuerta as the limit of my involvement had long since passed and we still had nothing but conjectures and tentative connections, I had no desire to stop. I was less than eager to dive back into the dating fray after Rudy and Lundy—both disasters in their own ways—and so found my evenings bleakly unoccupied by any activities, erotic or otherwise. Dex was still his usual distant self, and at the moment I didn't feel like attempting to scale the barriers he continually erected around himself.

The Butcher case was as good a distraction as any.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for this Chapter:** This is one of the more violent chapters in the story, just to give you a heads up.

--

**Chapter 2**

**Dexter**

The empty office in the back of the warehouse had been dark and filthy, its walls cracked and beaded with dampness from the humid Miami air outside. Now all that was hidden behind heavy sheets of plastic, leaving me and the body stretched out before me floating in a spotless cocoon. The figure was so pale and stiff that it could almost have already been dead, except for the sheen of sweat on the milky forehead and the fine tremble in the restrained limbs. The five roles of plastic wrap I'd used to secure him to a low metal shelving unit glittered cleanly as I adjusted the overhead lamp to illuminate the face of my newest friend more fully.

His pock-marked, stubble-covered face was the only thing upsetting the flawlessly sterile environment I'd created. He'd made no effort to scream through the wad of gauze I'd stuffed in his mouth, which I appreciated, but his blood-shot eyes had been rolling around, following my every move since he'd regained consciousness. I'd enjoyed watching that shimmer of moisture on his face turn into droplets as I'd deliberately taken care to examine each of my tools within his range of vision, angling the knives as I considered them so that the light ran liquidly over their scalpel-sharp edges. By the time I'd selected five and laid them out on the white towel spread a few inches from his face, the droplets had begun to roll down his cheeks and temples, leaving oily lines that made me think of the glistening trails of slugs. I could smell the stink of old and new sweat on him, the odor beginning to fill the tiny space.

Mr. Peake's personal hygiene left something to be desired. It looked like I'd be sparing hundreds of innocent Miami residents from his stench as well as his knives—dull, dirty, and inexpertly wielded as they were. I would take a little extra time with this one; perhaps he'd learn something from my technique before I was finished with him. It was a pity that he, like my sad copy-cat, would never have the opportunity to put my instruction to use. It was somewhat discouraging that I always had to hunt or be hunted by those who might appreciate my special talents, but I'd already been down this road with Brian and Lila, and knew it always circled back, taking me through much confusion and unnecessary distress only to return me to where I'd begun. I'd made a new beginning when I'd started a fresh box of slides, which meant no more fruitless questions and speculations.

I was starting to find Peake's dripping, stinking, trembling presence intolerable. It was time to move this along.

I plucked the dampened fabric from his mouth. A rush of air escaped from him before he clamped his lips shut. His terrified, yet stubborn eyes remained fixed on me.

"Hello, Mr. Peake. Do you know why you're here?" He remained silent except for his ragged breathing. "Maybe a little reminder, then." I lifted the black bag that had been resting beneath the table, opened it, and drew out the first of the items inside. His eyes widened slightly as I freed it from the crinkled plastic bag that covered it.

The worn steak knife looked dingy in my white-gloved hand. It had seen a lot of use before it had sunk into Mrs. Peake's throat. A crime of passion, and his first kill. The blade's surface was still speckled with a few flaking, rust-colored patches. I could appreciate the spirit of the souvenir, if not the messy, theatrical form it took. That kinship alone told me Peake was as much a monster as I, and thus had to be put down.

I lifted them out one by one, laying them alongside my own tools—eight in all, of irregular lengths and qualities, but each bearing stains of increasing freshness. Some were people I had been able to connect to him in some way: an old coworker, an ex-girlfriend. Others seemed to be random strangers. Two were children. Regardless of their identities, they all looked sloppy and awkward next to the blades I'd brought—amateurs trying to play with professionals. His eyes followed them, and I wondered if they appeared to him as my slides had to me a few months ago—old friends now making the ultimate betrayal.

The reeking reality of his physical presence forcibly intruded itself into my awareness again, and I shook my head slightly, trying to regain the steadiness I'd had a moment before. I didn't think I was in for a repeat of Jimmy Sensio and Little Chino, but I seemed to find that space of peaceful, white emptiness that had once preceded each of my kills much more rarely these days.

Fortunately, Mr. Peake obligingly brought me back to the moment as he finally broke his silence.

"What is this, some kind of vigilante crap?" His voice had only the smallest waver at the end, despite all the other evidence of his fear. Bravo, Mr. Peake. It was enough of an acknowledgement of his crimes for my purposes.

"Something like that." I picked up the scalpel.

"This is the kind of tool you should have used," I said, as I held it a few inches above his face, turning it so he could admire the edge. "Clean. Brought to the scene for this purpose, not the first workable object I ran across ten minutes ago. Sharpened before hand." I drew it down the length of his cheek, the metal rasping faintly against his stubble, and a crimson line welled behind it as the surrounding skin shivered. The blood seemed to pause for a moment, poised, before running in several tiny rivulets over the lip of the cut to spot the plastic covering the table. I picked up my pipette and dipped the end into the wound, squeezing a droplet onto the glass slide I had at the ready. I brought a second slide down on top of it and the bead bloomed like a translucent, pressed flower between my fingers. "This last part is purely optional, of course, but I find it more convenient than keeping a box full of incriminating, blood-coated murder weapons."

"Fucking psycho!"

"Pot and kettle, Mr. Peake."

It went smoothly and efficiently after that. The faint electricity of the impending kill made my precise movements almost jaunty and my voice not much different from the tone I used to explain an interesting blood spatter pattern to one of my colleagues at work as I displayed each of my knives to him in turn, outlining its particular strengths and weaknesses, and then demonstrating. He did scream, eventually, but I didn't mind now. I'd planned for it, and there was no one else within a city block to hear. I was content, in my natural element, as comfortable as I would imagine a long-dry alligator to be upon returning to the water, and I drank in every sight and sound. I wanted to have clear memories to relive the next time I looked at the slide. His last groan cut off in a gurgle as, after explaining its purpose, I pulled my final knife in a neat, swift motion across his throat. Curtain down on Mr. Peake.

Then there was just the cleanup. It wasn't as stimulating as the kill itself or even the preparation, but it had its charms. The man who had briefly served as my therapist had said I must enjoy organizing and categorizing things; he was right. As I dismantled the body I drew on my medical training to mentally label each bone and muscle as it was revealed before I deposited the pieces into my black Hefty bags. Mr. Peake reduced to tibia and humerus, gracilis and bicep, and the little smudge of blood on the slide in my pocket.

I also enjoyed the cruise out across the water to my new dump site. It was further away than my first one, which had seemed an inconvenience at first, but I'd begun to look forward to the ride. After the glare of light on metal and plastic for several hours the darkness of the sky and water were always soothing, especially after particularly bloody kills, as tonight's had been. Blood always drew mixed reactions from me.

The beat of the waves against the hull and the rumble of the engine were soothing in my sated state. It gave me time to relive the events of the night, as well as to think about other things.

Like my difficulty in silencing that voice that lately seemed to always be intruding during my little projects, forcing me into that kind of self-examination I'd come to loathe. I just wanted to go back to being the old efficient and untroubled Dexter, albeit with a little more self-determination now that I had made the code my own. I'd internalized the yard stick by which I'd always measured my actions, and maybe that made these new questions and uncertainties inevitable now that I was no longer blindly following my foster father's commands. It didn't help that I'd tasted twice now the possibility of being known and accepted for what I was. In each case I'd had to destroy with my own hands that possibility of living in the open with at least one other person. The only people in my life of whom I'd become fond enough of to idly wish from time to time for such honesty with were Rita and Deb.

Impossible, of course.

Even with the newly insistent wheedling of my inner voice, it wasn't in my nature to brood about things that couldn't be changed. After the satisfying splashes of the black bags disappearing into the blacker ocean to be carried far away from here and any possibility of being connected with me, I brought "The Slice of Life" leisurely back to harbor, letting my mind drift with the boat as the city lights reflected in glittering shards on the choppy surface of the water.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Debra**

"Following in your brother's footsteps again, hm?"

I'd been distracted, thinking of the paperwork I had to finish before the end of the day on the latest bloodbath that had resulted from a drug deal gone bad, and it took a moment for Camilla's words to penetrate. Once they did, I came up with an insightful, "What?"

"Oh, he's just like you—always borrowing files, investigating old crimes, trying to do a bit of good in his spare time. Of course, he usually bribes me with donuts." She smiled as she slid me the latest stack of files I'd requested.

"Dex borrows old files from you?" He'd never mentioned anything about this. Of course, my brother never mentioned much of anything to me.

"Mmhm. Always has." Her brow crinkled. "I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds. I thought you two might be working together on his projects. I never would have mentioned it, otherwise…"

I forced myself to smile. So Dexter was keeping a secret from me—What else was new?

"Oh, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess he has told me about that hobby of his before. But nah, we're not working together on these. Same goal, independent methods, I guess." Her expression cleared.

"Ah, I see. Well I guess I'll let you know then that your brother has already looked at two of those—the Williams and Peake files—so you don't need to waste time duplicating his work. I can take them back." She held out her hand, but I tucked the whole stack under my arm.

"That's ok. Dex and I go about things really differently. I might see something he missed." I gritted my teeth as her smile became faintly patronizing. As with everyone else, it seemed my big brother could do no wrong in her eyes. I was just his little fuck-up of a sister—falling for serial killers, sleeping with federal agents, more known around the office for her skimpy outfits in vice than for her skills as a homicide cop.

I hastily retreated back to my desk to mull over what she'd said as I glared at the imposing stack of files. Maybe Dex did have a hobby of attempting to solve old crimes, though it didn't seem like him. And it could be a coincidence that two of the files he'd looked at happened to be those of murderers who had recently gone missing. But I didn't think so. No, the truth was painfully obvious.

Dex was investigating the Bay Harbor Butcher case as well. He'd always shown such fascination with it, after all. I sighed.

"Keep staring at those files like that and they might spontaneously combust." I looked up to see my brother standing a few feet away, a sideways grin on his face and his eyebrows raised. My golden brother who could always get in the killer's head, to whom I inevitably ran for advice whenever a problem seemed too tough for me to crack. Not this time. I picked up a file from the gang shooting and plopped it on top of my stack as he approached, concealing the other files from view. If he didn't see fit to share his activities on the case, neither would I.

"Just files from the Romero case. Forms to be filed, reports to type, you know the drill. Wasting time on paperwork when I could be tracking down bad guys."

"Yeah, I know how that is." He checked his watch. "Well, good luck with that, little sis. I'm off to a crime scene." I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. It seemed a bit juvenile, even for me. Once he was out of sight, I set Romero aside again to resume staring at Williams.

It was petty, and it probably meant that, as Camilla had said, I was wasting time by duplicating Dex's efforts, but I couldn't bring myself to team up with him on this. I could already see how it would go down if I mentioned his interest in the Butcher case to LaGuerta—she would be all over him, as she always had been. Once again I would be pushed aside to make way for the superior Morgan. Dex would come up with the crucial insight, Dex would get the credit, and I might as well be back in vice for all that I would get to do. No, I would go this one alone. There was something to what I'd said to Camilla—our techniques were completely different. (Yeah, his were professional and mine were amateur, a voice whispered in my mind. I told it to shut up.) I might see something he had missed, for all his expertise and insight. A fresh eye could never hurt.

The Romero case could wait. I flipped open the Williams file.

Emmett Williams. 5'9''. Twenty-eight. Caucasian. Blond hair, brown eyes. Various tattoos. In and out of jail for petty larceny since dropping out of high school. Usually unemployed and a suspected dealer. He had been linked with a string of drug-related murders, but none of the charges could be made to stick. In some cases his shaky alibi had been enough to get him off, in others the lack of physical evidence had been the nail in the case's coffin. They were all near misses, and he clearly never learned—each new accusation and trial came on the heels of the last, and he looked about due for another. Or at least he would have been if he hadn't inexplicably vanished two months ago. It was unlikely that he'd skipped town given that he'd lived his whole life in the Miami area and had never shown any inclination to make an effort to dodge the police before.

A cursory effort had been made to track him down in connection with a burglary, but there was no sign of him, and no suggestion from his various acquaintances that he'd been planning on leaving town or was in more than his usual amount of trouble. Yet there was no hint of foul play—very neat for a drug-related murder, as the high body count and reams of blood spatter evidence in the Romero file testified. I felt my excitement rise, even as I tried to force away the knowledge that I was likely covering ground Dex had already walked circles over. Within a few minutes I'd photocopied the relevant sections and flagged the papers with a red tab that meant top priority in the system LaGuerta and I had created.

I dug through the stack and located the Peake file. This one was a little more unusual.

Arnold Peake. 6'1''. Thirty-five. Caucasian. Black hair, blue eyes. No tats. No jail record. Did a year and a half on a B.A. in the performing arts at a state university before dropping out. Employed for the previous seven years at several different janitorial jobs. Before that, various positions in phone sales with some moonlighting in local theatre productions, but nothing on the stage in the past eight years. The beginning of his career as a janitor nearly coincided with the opening of our file on him when he became a person of interest in the death of his wife. It was the same story after that—no physical evidence, an alibi that looked questionable to me but had convinced a jury, and a contaminated crime scene to boot. The file had remained closed until a few months ago, when it was noted that he'd had opportunity in the case of a fourteen year old girl who had gone missing from the school at which he currently worked and turned up dead in the Everglades a few weeks later. There had been no physical evidence or motive uncovered, however, and the file had once again been shelved. There was no indication that he was missing.

Acting on the usually reliable hunch that my brother knew more than me, I called the school. Mr. Peake hadn't shown up at work for the past three days. His supervisor told me that he'd pulled such several-day-long vanishing acts on numerous occasions in the past—something about a chronic illness—and he 

was sure Peake would be back within a day or two. The man could be a little odd, he told me, but he was a good guy.

My hand was trembling slightly as I hung up the phone. Three days! We were only three days behind the Butcher, I was sure of it. And there was likely an untouched crime scene waiting for us, if we could only find it.

The Peake case photocopies got three red flags in my binder.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for this Chapter:** Sorry it's so short! There are some lengthier ones coming up.

--

**Chapter 4**

**Dexter**

I had been looking forward to this crime scene. Edward Hagerman had first appeared on my radar nearly a year ago, when he had briefly come under police scrutiny after what was left of the body of the daughter of a prominent Miami lawyer had been found by a pair of off-duty police officers that liked to do their hiking well off the beaten paths. The chemicals used to break down the remains into near unrecognizeability had been traced back to the lab at which Hagerman worked. Everyone with access to the building had been investigated, but suspicion slid off sleek, silver-haired Mr. Hagerman like water—or, perhaps more appropriately, blood—off a duck. As far as the detectives were concerned, the case had reached a dead end after all their inquiries and searches of the premises had left them empty-handed. While the agitations of the bereaved father kept a token bit of man power devoted to it, the crime had been forced to give way before the other murdered daughters that continually filled the morgues and the Miami PD's desks.

I hadn't forgotten Mr. Hagerman, however. I'd done some investigating of my own at the lab while my day-time colleagues had been busy jumping through legal hoops to get the necessary warrants. That bit of breaking and entering had put even my abilities to the test, and the undisturbed hour in Mr. Hagerman's office I gained from it had not been as fruitful as I'd hoped it would be. The cabinets and drawers full of glass beakers, tubing, and more exotic apparatus unfamiliar even to me had glittered with as much innocuous cleanliness under Luminal as they had under the fluorescent lights. If they had anything to say about the girl's death, I hadn't been able to detect it, and Hagerman's Spartan condo had been nearly as reticent. No weapons, no familiar tools of our trade, no trophies, no blood.

I'd actually felt almost at home as I'd moved from one sparse room to the next, leaving ghostly footprints in the nap of the apparently compulsively vacuumed carpeting. No photos of family or friends, everything impeccably neat, book shelves whose contents didn't venture much outside the narrow span between _Gray's Anatomy_ and the most up to date _Merck Index_ of chemicals. I'd even thought briefly of the connection that would be made between us when he undoubtedly noticed the faint traces of my passage on the floors. Would he be afraid? Merely curious? I'd thought of how easy it would be to leave him a calling card of my visit, as my brother had once left for me.

I didn't act on the fleeting impulse, of course. I was too much a creature of logic for that. But I had come to realize what such affinities usually meant.

And so, while I couldn't kill him under Harry's Code, as it had still been at the time, without absolute proof of his guilt, I'd made a mental note of Mr. Hagerman and done all the necessary background research on him. He'd transferred from company to company, usually moving every five or six years but always working in some sort of lab environment. There was little I could find to connect him to any unsolved murders at his previous locations, but I didn't doubt that he'd been at this even longer than I had. Did he have more kills than me? It didn't matter; I was sure that, relentlessly subjected to my minute examination, he would tip his hand within the year.

For the time being, however, I had filed Mr. Hagerman away and concentrated on other murderers and the pressing issue of the hunt for "The Bay Harbor Butcher." Lately I had been stalking easier prey, like Mr. Peake, that obligingly left bloody murder weapons lying around for any half-skilled serial killing vigilante to find.

I had been starting to find such projects curiously unsatisfying, however. I could have taken Peake down when I was twenty-two. After the intricate games Brian and I had played and, on the heels of that, the evasion of the FBI hunt that had drawn on all of my abilities, I needed something more stimulating. For so long I'd used no measure of success but the Code of Harry. Much of what he'd taught me was still practical, but, now that I was looking at things more clearly and making my own assessments, I could admit that killing killers had always attracted me not only because it helped me keep from getting caught and allowed me to use my "gifts" to clean up my corner of the world a little, but also for the challenge it presented.

I'd known when I started my new box that it was time to explore some new rituals and techniques, although I'd had no specific plans. As my mind had continued to turn back to Mr. Hagerman, however, I'd realized that, when it came to satisfying my urges, the likes of Arnold Peake were to killers of Hagerman's caliber as greasy, fast-food hamburgers were to a sizzling porterhouse. It looked like my tastes were beginning to refine themselves.

And so I'd actually felt a curl of anticipation in my stomach that I hadn't experienced since the Ice Truck Killer was on the loose when word had come in that another body with an MO matching that of the lawyer's daughter had turned up only a few miles from the other dump site. Hagerman had become either lazy or overconfident in his old age. There probably wouldn't be any blood, but I'd find a way to insinuate myself into the investigation. I was sure Mr. Hagerman would be on my table shortly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Debra**

"How is the Peake file coming? Did anything from that pan out?"

I shrugged, staring down at the drink between my hands. LaGuerta had been enthusiastic when I'd brought her the Peake file. She no doubt would have been even more excited had she known that her beloved Dexter had been the one to locate it as he'd investigated the same case we were working on. As it was, she'd let me take charge of this one while she followed up on some finds of her own.

"Not really."

LaGuerta's brows drew down slightly.

"Nothing at all? I thought you said it was practically a sure thing."

"Well, I thought it was."

In fact, I'd been so certain Peake would be the key to the Bay Harbor Butcher case that I'd thrown myself completely into the investigation, spending every moment of my free time on it. I'd thought I was only a few mental steps behind the monster I was hunting, and, if I could be the one to capture him, I knew it would be the high point of my career. I might even be able to forgive myself for being so fucking blind to what Rudy was for all those weeks, obliviously sleeping with him just yards away from where he chopped up all those girls, if I could get an even more vicious serial killer off the streets.

And the Butcher was more vicious than my fiancée of approximately ten minutes, I assured myself. That was certainly the case when I looked purely at the numbers. At the very least, the Butcher had been responsible for all those bodies that had filled a warehouse-sized tent in the Miami PD parking lot a few months ago. Of course, those had apparently all been murderers—still sick and horrifying, but almost understandable, despite what I'd said to Dex about Dad teaching us the value of human life. But, if LaGuerta's theories were correct, the Butcher had also framed and murdered Doakes. No such thing as a moral serial killer when the pressure was on, obviously. This guy didn't have any qualms about killing innocent people. He was just as much of a monster as anyone he'd taken down. And, with the Peake file 

in my hand, I'd allowed myself to think that I might be the one to put the bastard away. It had almost matched the thrill I'd gotten from chasing the man I'd believed to be the Ice Truck Killer.

"So what happened, then?"

I shook my head as LaGuerta's sharp question intruded into my thoughts.

"I read that file backwards and forwards. I questioned Peake's coworkers and I would have interviewed his friends and family if I'd been able to find any. Looks like Peake was a loner. No surprise there. The neighbors I talked to hadn't seen him in about a week, but they said that's nothing unusual. There was no answer at his door, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Obviously I couldn't get into his apartment, and no one has filed a missing persons report yet, so not much hope of there being an official investigation before the trail is completely cold."

LaGuerta and I were continually crippled in our investigations by our inability to get search warrants, since we were doing this on our own time and obviously in no hurry for the Captain to find out about our activities. The entire Bay Harbor Butcher case and its connections to the Miami PD were a sore spot for him.

"I checked out the school, too, but nothing helpful there. I went to some of the places Peake used to work hoping to look up his old coworkers. I thought he might still be in contact with some of them. No luck."

Actually, Peake seemed to have left a series of hollow shells behind him like some sort of hermit crab—both of his two most recent previous places of employment had been abandoned. The older one was a small theatre Peake had played a few minor roles in a decade ago but which had been closed down two years ago for fire safety violations. Because clearly it was safer for the building to sit vacant except for an infestation of rats and the occasional squatter while the owners battled the city in the courts. It had been obvious from the moment I'd pulled up to it that it had nothing of use to give me, but still, I hadn't been able to resist trying the door or going inside when I'd found that door unlocked. It had been the same at an old warehouse Peake had worked in just before transferring to the school job. There, I'd wandered through the empty, echoing storage spaces and the filthy, damp-stained offices at the back, reasoning that I was safe enough in the middle of the day with my gun at my side. The warehouse was in the middle of a block that was almost entirely abandoned, and I'd seen nothing living during my ten minute exploration—even the rats seemed to spurn that place.

As I'd walked, I'd imagined the oily-faced man pictured in Peake's file moving along these same routes a few years before, as though bringing myself closer to the victim, however unpleasant he was, might bring me closer to the elusive killer I was tracking, as well. Unfortunately, the theatre and warehouse had held nothing for me but the smell of mold and dust and a few chills up my spine.

"So yeah, looks like I'm coming up with nothing on this one." I took a long drink from my glass and tried to relax my shoulders as frustration turned them into twin knots. I hadn't realized how much this case had gotten to me until now, when I had to admit my failure to LaGuerta after finding my first promising lead.

"Maybe you should try talking to the neighbors again. You could tell them—"

"What? I can't exactly say that I think Peake's been killed by the Bay Harbor Butcher based on my hunch that—" I'd been about to say 'that my brother has a hunch,' but caught myself in time. It was awful, and I hated myself for it, but I couldn't find it in me to tell LaGuerta that Dex was almost certainly working on the case as well. I'd been so certain I could do this on my own, and I wasn't ready to give that up yet. Not to mention that I'd probably never get a moment alone with either of them again if they teamed up. So, I finished lamely, "that he was secretly a double murderer."

"That file was our most promising lead. Why are you giving up on this so quickly?" Her arms were folded and her gaze was growing icy. It was a familiar look that I'd come to dread as it usually preceded her shooting down one of my theories or embarrassing me in front of the rest of the office. Abruptly the past few months of friendship seemed to fade before the return of the old LeGuerta.

"I'm not giving up!" I snapped, crossing my own arms defensively and leaning back into the plastic fake leather of the seat.

"You've hardly tried on this one, Morgan."

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit! I've spent every fucking evening of the past two months on this case. I haven't slept more than five hours a night since I started working on Peake, so don't you dare tell me I haven't tried!" I forced myself to lower my voice when I saw a few heads turn our way. "I haven't heard you come up with anything solid yet."

We sat seething for a few moments, staring silently across the table at one another. Then the hard line of LaGuerta's mouth softened and her shoulders slumped slightly. Whatever fire had been lit a moment before had burned itself out.

"No, I haven't. My files didn't pan out, either."

"Sorry." I said, quietly. I couldn't sustain my anger in the face of her disappointment.

"Me too. I know you don't have to be doing any of this, Deb. I just really thought we'd have something by now. The longer this goes on, the less likely it is that I'll ever be able to prove that James was innocent."

Especially if I kept leaving resources I had at my fingertips untapped. I felt a stab of guilt at the thought that the Butcher might continue unchecked and Doakes remain vilified a day longer than necessary because I was too proud to ask for help.

"We'll do it," I assured her. "There are always more files to try, and… And there are a few more avenues I can explore with the Peake file." Like the one my brother lived on.

"You don't have to do that, Deb."

"No, it's fine. I want to get this guy off the streets, too."

She nodded.

"Of course. Thank you. Again."

I forced myself to smile as some of the defeat lifted from her and seemed to pass to me. I insisted to myself that it didn't matter who brought this guy in as long as he was stopped and the truth revealed. I almost believed it.

"No problem."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Dexter**

To most people an arterial spray or cast-off stain looks random, no more than a series of spots and spills, but I see the patterns that the mess and chaos conceal. Like my extracurricular blood-related activities, it is both art and science. There is the preparation and training—the precise measurement of the location and shape of each drop at the scene and the calculation of angles back at the lab to find the area of origin, the tracing out of the space they moved through for only a moment with string, capturing that intimate moment of death and freezing it so that it may be examined from every angle and picked over by dozens of hands and minds. But there is also the inspiration and instinct—letting all the little patterns and pieces arrange themselves in my mind to form a single, larger pattern that determines the whole. Nothing about the way blood falls is controlled by chance. The path of the smallest droplet is governed by the precise interaction of mathematical rules and human action, and there is no one better than I at finding the convergence of the scientific and the human elements to pinpoint the truth.

But it would be a lot easier to do if my sister weren't hovering over my desk.

"Hey Dex, what're you working on?"

"Just some more analysis for the Romero case."

"I thought all that was pretty cut and dried?" She picked up one of my pens and started twirling it between her fingers. I've come to learn that such actions usually mean she's nervous about something she wants to say.

"It is. I just don't want to leave any loose ends that might unravel the case when it comes to trial." The only loose ends I ever left were strategic ones, but I had better playmates to look forward to spending time with in the near future than drug-dealing, gun-toting gang members.

"Yeah, I hear you on that. So… what's up with you, Dex?"

I typed a few more numbers into my computer, wondering how long she'd dance around whatever her purpose in coming over here was.

"The usual—this case, another drug deal gone bad, a woman stabbed to death by her husband. Lots of blood at all three. What about you? How's your end of the Romero case going?"

"More paper than blood on that one for me." She absentmindedly put my pen between her teeth, setting my own teeth on edge.

"Could you please not do that?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that." She quickly replaced it in my pencil cup. "Hey Dex, I was thinking… we've both been so fucking busy lately we haven't had a lot of brother-sister time, you know?"

I never understand what she means by this. What makes one hour we spend together "brother-sister time" and not another? I have so far established that time spent discussing cases at work is not brother-sister time, nor is it brother-sister time if the same is discussed while standing in my apartment. However, discussing cases can be brother-sister time if it is done over dinner or while sharing beers on my boat. I suspect no amount of experimentation will reveal clear rules governing this particular subject.

"Yeah, we have both been really busy, I suppose," I answer, waiting to see where she is going with this. She simply continues to look expectantly at me.

Ah.

"Hey, why don't you come over to my place tonight for dinner?" I offer. "We can discuss something not involving blood or case files." I flash her a smile, certain I've presented exactly the answer she was waiting for, even as I begin mentally restructuring my evening. Fortunately, this new wrinkle in my plans can be worked around fairly smoothly. It is Wednesday, and my next play-date is not until Friday night. This just means I'll be a little busier tomorrow.

"Yeah, dinner sounds great. But, well, actually there is sort of a case I want to talk to you about. At dinner."

Well, it will probably be less painful than listening to her talk about her sex life, anyway. Although, come to think of it, she's said nothing about a relationship in months. I filed the fact away for possible analysis later.

"We can't just talk about that here?"

"No."

Odd. It's not like Deb to be mysterious—she's always been blatant and up-front to a fault.

"Ok… See you at seven, then?"

"You supply the steaks, I'll bring the beer."

I formed a smile to match her own. "Sounds good."

She left, letting the door to my lab slam behind her with a rattle of Venetian blinds. I turned back to my desk with a sigh. After a quick glance out into the main office, I moved the Romero file aside to make room for the new materials I'd collected to add to my personal file on Hagerman. Only a few days ago I'd finally found the key piece of evidence that could connect Hagerman to this latest, chemical-eaten body. It had been a tiny thing—the cocktail he'd created had been perfect for dissolving tissue and clothing, but it was less successful when it came to metal. The damage to the body had made it difficult to determine the cause of death, but her arms and legs had been bound together, and I'd guessed that Hagerman must, at least for a moment, have pinned her wrists between his hands.

I'd gone over the heavy metal bracelets she'd been wearing minutely, and I hadn't been disappointed—trapped between the metal and the few circles of undamaged skin they had created when they'd been shoved up on the girl's forearms, I'd found a few droplets of blood that hadn't belonged to the victim. Maybe he'd already been bleeding from some wound she'd inflicted on him, maybe he pinched his fingers between those rows of jewelry. I couldn't be sure. But the blood had matched the DNA I'd collected from Hagerman's apartment back when I'd first investigated him. That little piece of evidence wouldn't be making it into the report I was writing up.

Sometimes the thread between a drop of blood and its source was an invisible link in my mind rather than a red string, but the connection was still just as clear to me and just as revealing of that convergence.

Everything was in place, the pattern about to be created as inevitable as an intricate arrangement of dominoes in which the first one had already been set into motion.

It was just a matter of time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Debra**

I paused in front of Dex's door, gathering my thoughts. I didn't have to do this. There was still time to turn around. I could come up with some excuse for missing dinner, even though I'd been the one to push for the invitation. But no, much as it killed me to admit it, I needed his help. The trail was growing colder by the hour, each moment putting the Butcher further beyond my reach. It was time to swallow my pride and go to my brother.

Well, some of my pride, anyway. I'd decided beforehand what I would and would not say, and I was determined to stick to that plan. I'd folded too often under pressure. I would tell him I'd been looking into the Butcher case again because I thought Doakes was innocent, but not that I'd been working with LaGuerta on this. I also wouldn't tell him directly that I knew he was also working on the case; I wanted to see how long it would take him to trust me and volunteer the information once I showed an interest in the Butcher. Running over these resolutions one more time in my head, I took a deep breath and knocked sharply on the door.

It opened a moment later to reveal Dex's smiling face.

"Hey, Deb. The steaks are about ten minutes away from done." He waved me in, and I took up my usual spot leaning against the counter, setting the six-pack in front of me. It was unlikely that Dex would let his guard be lowered at all by alcohol, but it was worth a shot.

"They smell great. And, hey, thanks for the invite—I feel like it's been a long time since we've really talked." He nodded, making a non-committal noise as he prodded the sizzling slabs of meat.

"So what's this case you want to talk about that we can't discuss at work?"

"Uh, that can wait until we're eating." _Chicken_, I thought to myself. "So what else _is_ up with you besides blood and case files?

He stared blankly at the steaks for a moment. "I took Rita and the kids out on the boat last weekend. Angel and I went out for some drinks after work two nights ago." He glanced at me as he made unnecessary adjustments to a pot of some kind of boiling vegetables, clearly checking to see if these 

brief facts would placate me. All my personal conversations with him usually went like this—no give and take, just him throwing out verbal scraps until I gave up trying to pry him open. I remained silent, opening one of the beers and continuing to look at him expectantly. Come on, surely investigating the Bay Harbor Butcher case was filling up his evenings, too. It would be so much easier if he would say something before I did.

"I don't know, Deb. Just the usual stuff. What about you? Anything new on the… dating front?" He must have been reluctant to talk about his own activities if he was trying that angle—my sex life was usually the last thing he wanted to hear about.

"No, not really. I'm taking some time for myself."

"That's probably a good idea."

"What, you're saying I used to be a complete slut?" I said, teasingly, and rolled my eyes when he looked alarmed. "Relax, Dex, I'm joking. Since you're so interested, I'll call you the moment I pick up some hot guy in the gym again and give you all the details, ok?"

He shook his head, smiling wryly. Did I really have to ruin this evening by bringing up the Bay Harbor Butcher? Yes—I would stick to my plan. No letting myself worm out of it.

Still, I retreated into small talk and banter for most of the evening, trying to figure out how to approach the subject. When our plates were nearly clear and there was no more putting it off if I wanted to talk about the case tonight, I decided I would just have to go with the direct approach. I'd always been best at that, anyway.

"So, that case I wanted to discuss with you… it's the Bay Harbor Butcher case." Had it been my imagination, or had he hesitated slightly before spearing the last piece of meat on his plate?

"What about it?"

"Well, LaGuerta's still pretty broken up about the whole Doakes being the Bay Harbor Butcher thing." That was as close as I would get to the truth about LaGuerta's role in all this.

"Makes sense. You guys have been spending a lot of time together, right?" I hadn't mentioned that to him. Nice to know he wasn't completely oblivious to my life.

"Yeah, she needs someone to talk to, you know? And there aren't a lot of people besides the two of us dumb enough to have spent lots of one-on-one time with someone who was apparently a serial killer," I said, with a self-deprecating laugh. The words stung more than they would have two months ago, since it looked like I was once again the only one in that category. "But all that got me thinking about some of the details of the case."

Dex glanced at me sharply while he gathered the plates, but didn't say anything in response.

"I mean, some of it seems strange, doesn't it?"

"Not really." His back was to me as he washed our dishes. My brother the neat freak. "The trophies were in his car, they found his prints all over a set of knives, and he was found with the body of the last victim. When you combine that with all the incidents he had on the job with pulling his gun too early and using unnecessary force, I'd say it's pretty much case closed." His words were punctuated by the sound of his cabinets snapping shut as he put the dishes away.

"But that's just it, it all fits too neatly."

"Evidence always fits neatly, unless you're missing some piece of the puzzle." He was leaning against the counter, and didn't seem inclined to close the distance between us. "I don't think we were with Doakes. I know it's hard to accept, but—"

"It's more than just hard to accept. I mean, Doakes could be a hard-ass, but a serial killer? You knew him, too. Do you really think we all could have worked side-by-side with him for years without having any idea?"

"Yes." I wasn't sure how to respond to such a blatant statement. Why was he so calmly calling Doakes the Butcher when I knew he was still investigating the case? What could make him do that but a desire 

to keep me from figuring out what he was doing and trying to get involved? I felt a stab of anger. Did my own brother really think so little of my investigative abilities that he would lie to my face?

Forcing myself to calm down, I decided to try a new tactic. Dex had always been so good at getting into the minds of killers; maybe if I could move this quickly derailing conversation in that direction and get him thinking along those lines I could get some insights, even if it meant pretending we were talking about Doakes. It felt awful to discuss Doakes as though he had really been guilty, but my brother seemed to be managing this little charade without a problem. I would too.

"Ok, fine. You're probably right. Doakes was the Butcher." He relaxed a hair. "It's weird to think about, isn't it? Working with him on all of those crime scenes? Even on his own victims. That must have been pretty fucking weird for him, too." It was easier than I'd thought it would be; we still knew the Butcher was one of our own, so all this still applied. My new approach also seemed to have thrown Dex off a little. Good.

"I'm sure it was." He drifted over again and sat down in the chair across from me.

"I mean, imagine working every day with the people hunting you down," I continued, warming to my subject. "Probably attempting to steer the direction of the investigation away from you, even tampering with evidence to throw us off the track. No wonder he was on edge all the time."

"Must have been hard." Maybe I was finally getting something genuine out of him—that had sounded almost sincere.

"A fucking lonely way to live."

"Serial killers don't get lonely, Deb. Part of the definition of being a sociopath."

"Stressful, then."

"I guess."

"So… how do you think he dealt with that?"

"Apparently by producing garbage bags full of body parts." I winced. "I'm sorry, Deb, but I'm not sure what you want me to say. I can't get into Doakes's mind."

"Why not? That's what you always do."

"I just can't on this one." He hesitated, his face unreadable. "It's like you said… weird to think about. I think it's best if we stop brooding on it and move on with our lives and work."

He meant I should move on with my life and not bother him while he did his work, I thought, bitterly. I tried one last ditch effort.

"I still think it doesn't fit. I can't imagine Doakes offing himself, that's another thing that bothers me about all this. He never just gave up like that."

"He never liked to give up control, either."

"But don't you ever think that—"

"No, Deb, I don't. Why are you so fixated on this case? Did LaGuerta ask you to talk to me about this?"

"Not everything I do is because someone else put me up to it! I'm doing this because I want to. I'm investigating this case because I believe Doakes is innocent."

"Deb—"

"I could not have been completely unaware of the fact that I was working with a serial killer! It could not have happened to me twice!"

The silence stretched, long and awkward. Where had that come from? Had that been why it had been so easy for LaGuerta to convince me that Doakes was innocent? Because I'd already wanted to believe it so I didn't have to feel so lousy about being duped twice? I hated my tendency to have these kinds of revelations aloud, in front of other people. My hands were digging into the cushions of Dex's couch, and I couldn't make myself look up from my own distorted reflection on the glass-topped coffee table. I saw vaguely out of the corner of my eye my brother moving towards me and a moment later felt the couch sink slightly as he sat beside me.

"Not knowing what Rudy and Doakes were doesn't make you a bad cop or a bad person, Deb." I remained silent, and after a few moments felt a tentative touch on my shoulder.

"The Hell it doesn't. A real cop would have some sense that she was with the person she was hunting. Rudy said that."

"Consider the source." I couldn't help the slight chuckle that drew from me.

"I know. But maybe he was right."

"He wasn't. You're a good cop. I've seen your insights be spot on time after time. Remember the ice truck being in plain sight? That was you. And you put as many of the pieces on the Bay Harbor Butcher case together as anyone. And—other times. You're smart, and you have good instincts. You'll make a great detective someday."

I was almost comforted by his words, would have been comforted by them if the complete hypocrisy of what he was saying hadn't struck me at that moment. I was such a great cop in his eyes, and yet he didn't want me working with him on the Butcher case? I was abruptly angry again, and to my embarrassment it was the teary-eyed angry that I dreaded rather than the swearing, fist-clenching anger I so often took refuge in. Screw the plan. I had to get out of here.

"You don't mean any of this." I brushed his hand off and got up from the couch in one movement, striding across the room to grab my keys.

"Deb, I really do—"

"Bullshit. But fine. Don't ask for my help. Whatever. I'm used to it."

"What are you talking about?" There was a slight edge of exasperation and bewilderment to his voice. My brother the actor, apparently.

"I'll see you at work tomorrow." I stormed out of the apartment, making sure to slam the door behind me. Childish, but I didn't care. Dex made no move to follow me. Typical.

--

My hands were still trembling from a welter of emotions I couldn't clearly define or separate any longer when I pulled into the parking lot of my building. Betrayal, rage, hurt—I wasn't sure where each one ended and the others began, so I just focused on forcing them all down and regaining some kind of control.

My crudely constructed plan hadn't amounted to much, and now I'd blown it for good with my tantrum. An insidious voice whispered that, maybe if I would keep my cool more often, Dex would be more willing to trust me. I fought to crush that, too.

"Ok, new plan," I whispered, leaning my forehead against the cool steering wheel.

--

It was crossing the line, I knew. But my anger, usually fast-burning, had smoldered this time instead, its warmth hatching excuses and justifications. Dex wasn't being fair to me, and his little hypocritical performance last night made his lack of trust worse—as though I was a child to be coddled and lied to. Another pair of eyes looking at the evidence couldn't hurt. Camilla's patronizing smile aside, I might catch something my brother, for all his expertise and instincts, had overlooked. And, the most appalling excuse of all, I might be the one to bring this guy to justice rather than my brother, a victory I felt I had earned. This last thought disgusted me slightly, but not enough to turn me from my course. Besides, all questions of pride, both Dex's and mine, were irrelevant next to the undeniable possibility that seeing what evidence he currently had would increase my chances of tracking down the Butcher without 

lessening his. And anything that brought anyone closer to capturing this guy was good, right? Justifications for the justifications, but I was done debating with myself.

I still had my key from when I'd stayed with Dex after Rudy. He'd never asked for it back, apparently trusting me not to do precisely what I would be doing in a few moments.

"Enough with the inner guilt-trips," I muttered, slipping my key into the door. To my relief, it turned and clicked easily. He hadn't changed the locks.

I'd been in here by myself before, of course, but the cold lines of the apartment felt strange and hostile now that I was here without permission after last night's scene. Dex was at work and would be away for hours yet, but my neck still crawled slightly as I sat down in his desk chair, turned on his computer, and, while I waited for it to boot up, started opening drawers. They were entirely free of clutter, and I found what I was looking for on the second try: a stack of photocopied case files much like the ones that were currently covering nearly every flat surface in my apartment.

The first two were dead girls, one from a few months ago, the other only days old—but clearly not Butcher victims. The MO and victim profiles were all wrong. Disappointed, I set them aside. But the third file stood out: Edward Hagerman. Clipped to it were all kinds of supplementary materials Dex had clearly collected on his own, some of them obviously related to Hagerman, others with less clear purposes. Candid photographs of Hagerman, schedules of his movements, maps of his company's building and an abandoned chemical factory, a few cryptic notes in my brother's handwriting, reports on chemicals that could break down bodies, some DNA reports… But the Hagerman file didn't indicate that he was a serious murder suspect, or even missing. It had been opened merely as a formality in a case I hadn't worked on, but that I vaguely remembered, from six months or so ago. The same would have been done for everyone in the lab Hagerman worked at, and this file had been closed almost as soon as it was created. The case had never been solved.

That last thought suddenly clicked with what I'd seen moments before, and I eagerly grabbed the other two files again. Yes, the older file was on the victim from that case, and the newer one was thought to be related. Was Dex a few steps ahead of the formal investigation on the latest victim? Had Hagerman disappeared, making him a likely candidate for the murderer of these girls and the latest Butcher victim?

I accessed the account Dex had created for me on his own computer when my laptop had died while I was staying with him, logging into the Miami PD databases. I brought up the latest information on Edward Hagerman, frowning when I saw that it hadn't been modified since the paper file had been 

closed. Some quick Googling and online newspaper searches turned up no evidence that Hagerman was missing, a fact which was confirmed by a quick call from my cell to his lab. I hung up when, after navigating through several menus and a receptionist, a smooth, cultured voice introducing himself as Dr. Hagerman asked how he could help me.

I sat staring at nothing for several moments, chewing on my lower lip, fighting an urge for the cigarettes I'd been trying to quit, and attempting to make sense of what was before me. My mind remained curiously blank, as if it didn't want to put the pieces together.

I turned slowly through the stacks of pages. Now the schedules and sparse notes seemed to make sense. Dex was definitely convinced that Hagerman had murdered these girls, and, as I examined the neat chain of evidence laid out before me and made some educated guesses about who the DNA reports belonged to, I found myself increasingly persuaded as well. Dexter was nothing if not thorough, and it looked like he'd built an airtight case against Hagerman. So why hadn't he shared any of this with the rest of the force? I knew the death of the latest victim was still actively being investigated. Dexter was committing a crime just by withholding all this material he'd uncovered. My stomach twisted unpleasantly. A natural reaction when you find that your brother's obstructing justice, I told myself.

Suddenly, it all fell into place, and the sick feeling retreated slightly. The only reason he could have for delaying justice for this girl was for some kind of greater good. He'd only let this murderer Hagerman walk around free for a moment longer than necessary if he hoped that, by doing so, he might be able to bring down an even more heinous criminal.

As the thoughts became clearer, the feeling of nausea returned in a crashing wave.

Somehow, Dex knew this man was the next victim on the Butcher's radar, and my brother was going to try to bring down the most dangerous serial killer Miami had ever known by personally catching him in the act.

--

I couldn't move.

The plastic was tight against my skin, hot and confining above, while icy cold metal pressed into my back below. The ceiling of a white circus tent rose to a peak above me. I turned my head and saw rows upon rows of metal tables covered in pieces of bodies in various stages of decomposition. The Bay Harbor Butcher's victims, all laid out as they had been before our tent had lost refrigeration. How had they come back?

The detectives, officers, and technicians from the department—Angel, Masuka, LaGuerta, the Captain, even Doakes—moved silently among the bodies, prodding, taking measurements, collecting samples. Their motions were a precise dance, timed to slow, wavering circus music that was only just audible, its notes stretched out and distant like sound heard under water. I saw myself walking among them, my face blank and my eyes unseeing. But the real me was pinned and gagged on this table and, no matter how I struggled or tried to cry out, I couldn't make them notice me.

Then I realized two men were standing beside the table I was secured to. Dexter and Hagerman stood over me just as my brother and Rudy had a year ago when I'd regained consciousness in time to see Rudy's knife flashing down towards my chest and Dexter intercepting it. But there was no conflict between these two. Hagerman just smiled beatifically down at me, and I felt a thrill of horror when I saw an oozing red line marking his neck and spots of blood spreading across his white shirt at his elbows, shoulders, and waist. He'd already been dismembered. And this time it was not Rudy but my brother who held the knife above me, wearing a smile of his own that looked no different than the one he had on every day when he brought boxes of donuts to work. The investigators continued to move around us, still oblivious to our presence, their motions guided by that sickening song.

I tried to speak, but the plastic wrap clung to my lips and nose. It was smothering me. I tried to pull away, to escape, but I couldn't move or breathe, could only stare helplessly as my brother raised the blade. It glinted liquidly in the light for a moment, and then it was coming down, and I knew that this time there was no one who would stop it.

--

I woke up with one of those awful groans that wanted to be a scream, but couldn't pull itself entirely from my still half-asleep body. As consciousness returned fully and I was able to stop my thrashing, I found that I was shaking and covered in sticky sweat. The sheet had twisted around my body, confining one of my arms as the plastic wrap had in my dream.

My dream.

A deep shudder passed through my body, beginning at the base of my spine and radiating outward to the tips of my fingers and toes. I flipped on my bedside lamp, squinting against the dim glow and forcing the images to retreat deep into the darkness of my subconscious, willing them to fade.

Just a stupid dream. It meant nothing. I tried to distract myself by focusing on more solid worries, as I always did when such phantom fears and anxieties pressed on me. I still had to figure out what I was going to do with my insight into my brother's plans. There wasn't much time; on the printed schedule of Hagerman's movements, "Friday, 9:45 p.m. – H. leaves work" had been marked with a tiny red X. It was already the early hours of Friday now. Dexter had never been a procrastinator—I was pretty confident he meant to act tonight.

After the realization I'd come to at Dexter's apartment, his unwillingness to discuss any possibility of further investigation of the Bay Harbor Butcher case with me made more sense. He'd been trying to protect me by refusing to get me involved in his investigation. He'd known from the beginning this would come to a personal confrontation with the Butcher, and he hadn't wanted to even give me the option of putting myself in danger. My brother the hero. Again. I was torn between being touched by his gesture and angered by the fact that he would make me unknowingly endure the risk of losing my only family member in the world, a risk that he himself was clearly unwilling to take. At that moment, still shaken from the dream and knowing I probably wasn't thinking as clearly as I should be, I came to a decision.

Screw chivalry or brotherly affection or whatever the Hell was driving his choice. I wasn't letting him walk into this lion's den without backup.

Being faced with the flawless thoroughness of Dex's work had humbled me in some ways. He was more of a detective than I would ever be, and no doubt he had just as carefully strategized every moment of his encounter with the Butcher. I wouldn't interfere with his plans, but he wasn't doing this without a safety net, either.

When he confronted this pair of murderers, I was going to be there.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**Dexter**

The waiting. It was perhaps my least favorite portion of my projects, but I usually didn't mind it, especially when it was the final wait. Each minute I stood outside Hagerman's building, passing the time until my newest friend arrived to join in the games I had planned for us, allowed me to imagine the different ways the rest of the night might unfold.

Except for the syringe, which rested in my pocket, all my other tools were laid out in precise order in the bag currently sitting on the front seat of the car that would escort Hagerman and I to the playground I'd set up for us. But I didn't need to see them to picture each one in exquisite detail. I could almost feel their weight in my hands and their edges against my fingertips as I mentally drew each one out from its resting place and considered it.

Of course I couldn't be sure which one would be right for the moment until Hagerman was stretched out before me, nor would I want to know. Letting each kill have its own unique turns and quirks was part of the thrill. During this process the part of me that I usually kept carefully leashed was given room to stretch and flex, filling for a few hours that bottomless emptiness I lived with every day and leaving me almost sated for a week or two afterwards before the gnawing, hungry hollowness returned and demanded once again to be satisfied.

When I allowed my urges to take over I was more their light-handed guide than their absolute commander, gently directing irresistible forces into the boundaries I'd created for them and seeing what patterns they created in my flesh and bone canvases. When things went well, whatever emerged had the neat inevitability of the picture on a completed jigsaw puzzle. I imagined that the satisfaction I got from bringing my kills to fruition might share something in common with the fulfillment other people found in nurturing a garden or raising a child. Pure speculation on my part, but sometimes these parallels helped me make sense of the more incomprehensible actions of the people around me.

I was pulled from my dreamy contemplation when the side door of the building opened and Hagerman emerged. He was the picture of a stereotypical scientist with his lean build, a lab coat which he had opened before stepping into the Miami heat, and full head of neatly combed back gray hair. It was a good cover—far better than Peake's patchy mask.

Mr. Hagerman always worked late on Fridays, long after everyone but the sparse security staff had gone home for the weekend. No date night for Mr. Hagerman, apparently. In any case, it was obliging of him, 

as it meant I could do this with little fear of witnesses. It was always gratifying to have a cooperative playmate that observed my rules.

The jingling of his keys provided a cheerful background note to the moment while also conveniently covering my almost inaudible footfalls as I crossed the side drive that ran the length of the building in a few quick strides, clamping one black-gloved hand over Mr. Hagerman's mouth and sinking my needle swiftly into his neck. He sagged almost immediately against me, an awkward position considering he was half a head taller than me.

Maneuvering him so that he was slung over my shoulder—a scarcely more dignified position for either of us—I walked the few steps back behind the building to where the car I'd borrowed from a scrap yard waited deep in the shadows. My own car was parked at the edge of the glow cast by the parking lot lights, along with six or seven others that comprised the overflow from a nightclub half a block away. I'd taken to using my car in my nighttime activities less often since the events of the past few months. I'd always been meticulous, but I was inclined to be even more careful now, especially with Deb suddenly sniffing around the Bay Harbor Butcher case again.

Deb. Our conversation of Wednesday night was the last thing I wanted to think about right now, but it stubbornly forced itself into my mind as I pulled out of the back driveway, distracting me and ruining any enjoyment I might have taken in the drive to the kill site. I had known my sister long enough to usually be a fairly accurate judge of what she was thinking or feeling, but I had found her sudden mood shifts two nights ago particularly hard to follow. It was even more confusing that it had been what should have been comforting words, words which also happened to be some of the only honest ones I'd been able to speak that night, which had sent her storming from my apartment. I hated feeling out of my depth.

No doubt LaGuerta had gotten Deb started on this, despite what my sister had said. I'd been planning on apologizing to Deb yesterday or today—not because I understood what I'd done to upset her, but because it usually made things easier in the long run—but I hadn't run into her once. It probably meant that she was avoiding me. Normally I would have welcomed, even encouraged, such a respite when she was upset with me, but, after some of the things she'd said last night, I found myself strangely eager to see her again.

It was completely illogical, I knew. It was easy for her to perhaps feel some sympathy for "Doakes the Butcher" when he was safely buried. Being faced with a living brother still actively making kills was another matter entirely. I'd had many occasions to imagine my sister's reaction to the truth about me a few months ago. None of the scenes I'd envisioned had been particularly pleasant.

No, this was just a freak impulse to be ignored, as I'd ignored my strange urge to leave some message or sign for Hagerman in his apartment.

But I couldn't ignore the increasing frequency of these ludicrous desires. It had always been imperative for me to keep a close watch on the few feelings or whims I had, always subjecting them to rigorous scrutiny. At one time I'd done so in order to be certain that they weren't leading me in a direction that would take me off the path of the Code. Now, after the spectacular train wreck that had been my affair with Lila, it was self preservation. I'd learned that giving free reign to impulses I didn't fully understand outside of the rational, pre-established boundaries I created for such things to play in was a recipe for disaster.

I'd told Deb serial killers didn't get lonely. That was true. This wasn't loneliness, not exactly. It was something more basic. With Harry, Brian, Doakes, Lila, and even Rita's Paul all gone—due at least in some part to my actions in every case—there was not a person alive who so much as suspected that there was more to me than met the eye. My inner, nighttime existence was entirely cut off from the daytime world I inhabited, making both seem increasingly unreal. I was beginning to feel disconnected to an entirely new degree as my two sides became entirely detached from one another.

Clearly, my need to connect with someone for longer than the few hours I spent with my plastic-wrapped friends and my desire to show someone the real me below the layers of masks I wore were only getting stronger, becoming more unmanageable the longer they went unsatisfied. Just as my urge to kill did. That thought brought a sense of calm with it. I knew how to deal with the one need; with a little thought, I could find a similarly controlled outlet for the other.

Having some kind of plan, however vague, in place allowed me to bring my attention back to the matter at hand. A good thing, since I'd arrived at the empty factory. Time to start the night's festivities.

My focus returned as I prepared Hagerman, stripping him and securing him to the waiting table within the translucent tent of plastic I'd created the night before. The ritual of laying my tools out and donning my apron and gloves was soothing. I left my welding mask within easy reach in case I was inspired to use the saw.

When I turned around again, Mr. Hagerman had begun to stir, blinking pale blue eyes that made me think of frosted glass against the glare from the numerous lights I'd placed around him.

"You should feel at home here, Mr. Hagerman. Bright, functional, sterile. We have similar tastes in that regard. Of course your penchant for cleanliness doesn't seem to have carried over into your methods of body disposal. Those girls—all half-dissolved flesh and rot. Messy." I gestured over my shoulder to the crime scene photos I'd hung on the plastic tarps, the bright colors and grisly details highlighted by their bland surroundings. His eyes followed the motion of my hand.

Horror or anger were the most common responses from my friends during this part of the ritual. There was usually yelling, bargaining, or pleading. But all I saw on Hagerman's face was resignation, almost… I struggled to classify what I saw, as reading other people's feelings was not one of my strong suits. Relief?

"So this is how it ends."

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Hagerman."

He rolled his shoulders slightly, testing his bonds, but not like he was trying to escape. He had a curious detachment that reminded me uncomfortably of the calmness of my brother before I'd brought the knife to his throat.

"It's fitting, I suppose. I've done my share of binding people down."

This wasn't going quite right. The situation seemed to be slipping ever so slightly out of my control. If I answered questions it was because it was a part of the game, a step in the process of teasing out my victims' emotional and physical responses. It was best when I could bring those responses to a peak before capturing them in the symbol of that little welling of blood. Then that moment could be trapped in glass, where everything that passed tonight could be examined and relived at my leisure. All that messy blood and emotion arranged into a tidy row in my box at home. But Mr. Hagerman wasn't playing. He just continued to stare at the pictures while seeming to look at something beyond them.

I pressed the scalpel against his face, drawing it down his cheek and exerting enough pressure to turn his slightly angled head back to face me. The action also drew from him an involuntary wince and a hissing of breath through his teeth. That was better.

"I have to say, I'm impressed. No pleas for mercy? No threats?" I asked, as I added another droplet to my collection.

"No. I knew it had to come to an end sometime." I could understand the sentiment. But I was past such desires to simply give up. "I actually thought it would be sooner. What are you, a father? Brother?" Yes on both counts, if foster relationships could be counted. But I knew that wasn't what he was asking.

"You misunderstand. This isn't about vengeance." His eyes narrowed slightly in confusion, and I began to feel steadier as I picked up one of my gleaming tools. That peaceful white blankness that had been so elusive these past months was beginning to emerge from the inner chaos the demands of my double life created. I briefly savored this moment, when my emptiness turned into whetted appetite about to be satiated and any uncertainties or doubts about what I was gave before its keen edge.

"What then?" His eyes were focused now, following the motions of my hands and coming to rest on the serrated edge of the reciprocating saw.

"Actually, our tastes are similar in more than decorating." I smiled, putting on the welding mask, but not bringing the plastic face cover down just yet. Mr. Hagerman, so cool and collected up to this point, seemed to grope for a response.

"I'm not sorry I did it. They all wanted it, you know, and more than anyone else your…" He trailed off, his eyes beginning to dart around as the situation slipped from his control and back into mine.

"I'm sure you had a wonderful little speech prepared for this moment about how my daughter or sister or whomever deserved what happened to them, all the brutal details of her death ready to be shared. You've probably imagined how, even at the mercy of some relative you left devastated and enraged, you'd still be the monster in the room, pulling the strings, toying with their pain. Unfortunately for you, Mr. Hagerman, you'll never have the chance to use all your carefully laid plans." I pulled the shield down over my face and pushed a wad of gauze into his mouth. "You don't get to bring this to an end on your own terms."

I turned on the saw, its high-pitched whine like a familiar, well-loved tune to me. Mr. Hagerman's eyes widened, and I saw a tremble run through his body as he tried futilely to pull away. He dealt in chemicals—it looked like he was squeamish when it came to actual blades.

Everything was as it should be as I listened to the changing notes the sound of the saw hit as I worked. I felt as at peace as I ever did, like when I was alone on the water in my boat or spending an afternoon with Rita and the kids, only better. As always, I wished the moment could stretch on forever.

"Dexter…"

The word was so soft that it was nearly lost in the noise of the saw, and the voice that spoke it was so unexpected in this place that, for a moment, I almost thought I'd imagined it.

"Oh, fuck, Dex…"

I involuntarily tightened my grip on the handle as I felt a sharp stab of undefined, animal panic in my gut. The saw's whirring settled into a single, steady note as I froze in place. Then a heavy numbness began in my chest, spreading out to my hands and feet.

Impossible.

I couldn't quite feel my fingers anymore, and some distant part of me managed to lift the saw from Mr. Hagerman and shut it off. I carefully set it down on the edge of the table to avoid dropping it on my feet. The glistening red that coated it seemed to be all I could focus on.

I didn't want to turn around, but this situation seemed to have all the qualities of a nightmare. Without making a conscious decision, I found myself twisting to face my sister.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Debra**

I bounced one leg impatiently, my gaze fixed on my brother's car. Even through binoculars it was hard to make out details in the dark, especially since the street lights reflected off the car windows in such a way as to leave the interior almost invisible. I never saw him get out after he pulled into the parking space, however, so I had to assume he was still in there. I'd felt a grim satisfaction to have all my suspicions confirmed when, after I'd been carefully, patiently following him as he meandered seemingly aimlessly through Miami for half an hour, we'd arrived here, and I'd settled in to wait. But there had been no movement in the parking lot in the past forty-five minutes besides a clearly drunk couple that had emerged from a nearby club and stumbled to their car. I'd been itching to follow them and give them a stack of tickets as they squealed out into the street, but I'd forced myself to stay put, knowing my brother's life might depend on it.

Now it was nearly 10:15—half an hour after Dex's papers had indicated Hagerman would be leaving work. I didn't want to put my brother at risk by walking into the middle of whatever he had planned, but I was starting to get worried.

Making a snap decision, I got out, pushing the door closed and walking slowly towards Dex's car. My hand hovered over my gun as I approached, my eyes constantly flicking between the car and the main door of the lab. As I drew nearer, however, anxiety began to build in my stomach. I broke into a jog, peering frantically through the windows. He wasn't in there. I'd assumed we would be tailing the Butcher when he took his victim to some other location to perform the actual act. I must have missed it when Dex got out. Damn it.

My brother might have been alone with the Bay Harbor Butcher for as long as half an hour and I had no idea where they'd gone.

Stupid, stupid, stupid to think that the Butcher would capture his victim in the front parking lot. I couldn't imagine how Dex was tracking the killer without his car or where the initial confrontation between the Butcher and Hagerman had happened that I had totally missed it, but I didn't have time to think about anything now except getting to my brother. But how could I when I had no idea where they'd gone? I should have confronted him and talked him out of this when I had the chance.

"Fuck!" I kicked the tire on his car, then forced myself to get my emotions under control. This wasn't helping. Had there been anything in my brother's papers that might hint at where the actual kill would take place? How could Dex have known something like that, though? No time to think about that—I cast my mind back over everything in the file. What had I seen that I hadn't been able to connect with everything else yet?

The layouts for the old chemical factory, I realized, with a jolt of excitement. I had no idea how Dex had figured that out, or why we'd gone here instead of straight there, but I that wasn't my concern at the moment. Sending up a silent thanks that I'd recognized the factory as a location not far from where I used to work vice, I ran back to my car and broke every speed limit on the way there.

There was one dented car in the cracked, weed-covered lot outside the factory. There was a chance I had the location right. It was enough to give me a new sense of hope that things might turn out alright.

"Please be here, Dex…" I impatiently blinked away the wetness filling my eyes; I couldn't afford the distraction.

I tried to find a balance between caution and speed as I searched for a way into the factory. It didn't take long; the chain and padlock that had secured a side door were unfastened. I winced slightly as the hinges creaked when I pulled on the handle, freezing in place, but I heard nothing from inside. I pushed again, and this time the door silently gave way.

Ducts and some old, rusted machinery loomed in the darkness. It took me a moment to realize that I shouldn't have been able to see anything at all in an unlit factory in the middle of the night. The strange, sinister shapes were black, silhouetted against dark gray. There was some source of light in there.

I pulled my gun out, keeping it pointed at the floor as I crept forward, feeling painfully vulnerable and listening intently for the sound of any other footsteps. Of course, if someone was sneaking up on me, I doubted I would be able hear anything over the pounding of my heart and the roaring of blood in my ears.

As I came around a particularly large mass of machinery and pipes, the source of the light came into view. I paused, startled.

The white, tent-like structure seemed to hover in the darkness like a paper lantern, the plastic sheets secured to some kind of ropes or cables that were strung across the little niche. While I stared at the surreal image, I became aware of a soft murmur of voices. I inched closer, trying to make out words. I could pick out silhouettes now through the tarps, but what I saw confused me. There was definitely a waist-high table with someone stretched out on it and a few other little tables, but there only appeared to be one person standing. I felt that strange mental blankness again, as things refused to connect.

Then I realized one of the two voices I was hearing was my brother's. No more time to debate or wonder what was going on. Keeping my footsteps as silent as I possibly could, I walked forward, nudging one of the curtains back ever so slightly with the end of my gun.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**Dexter**

So everything I'd ever done had led me to this moment. The end I'd just talked about with Hagerman, now here for me in the form of my sister.

Her gun was leveled at my chest, but it shook so badly that she'd be as likely to hit what remained of Mr. Hagerman as me if she fired. Her face was a sickly cream color, and her eyes more haunted than they had been the night I saved her from Brian. I felt a twinge of pain through the numbness. Just the prelude to what would come when the shock wore off, I was sure. Some distant part of me noted with detached curiosity that I was experiencing one of the most intense sensations of my life—I hadn't known I was capable of feeling this kind of ache. Interesting.

But the rest of me was too busy taking in everything flitting across my sister's face to make much note of the thought. Her mouth was twisted, her gaze hollow. Her face trembled, but never settled into a single expression, as though the muscles and skin were unable to contain or express whatever feelings were roiling through her at the moment.

"And I thought you were protecting me…"

Just when I'd thought this situation couldn't get more confusing.

"Protecting you?" My voice sounded far away to my ears.

"From the Bay Harbor Butcher." Her laugh was like broken glass, with all the jagged edges of shattered trust. "I thought you were tracking him down. That you were confronting him tonight. I came to back you up." I heard that awful laugh again that was mostly a dry sob, bearing no resemblance to anything I'd heard from my sister before. That distant part of me, the Dexter I usually was, wondered whether this was the beginning of hysteria. But he was very far away from me, now, unable to help me. I was on my own in this one. In any case, Wednesday night's conversation now made more sense; everything always fits neatly when you have all the pieces.

"Deb…" What was there I could say to reassure her when I was splattered with blood and had a nearly decapitated Mr. Hagerman stretched out only a foot behind me? I couldn't very well claim it wasn't 

what it looked like. For all I knew she'd seen the whole thing from the beginning. That was as good a place to start as any. "How long have you been here?"

"A minute or two. Long enough to… Oh, fuck, Dex…" Why, whenever people realized what I was, did they seem to feel the need to repeat the same phrase over and over again? "Dex… Why?"

As if I could ever answer that. There wasn't much point in anything but the truth now, though. I had no plans in place for this kind of situation, nothing I could base my reactions on. I didn't think I could scrape the scattered pieces of myself together right now to put up any kind of front, anyway.

"I don't know. It's what I am."

"How could you betray Dad like this? Betray ME like this?" Her voice was rising in pitch, the gun shaking ever more wildly as she swayed unsteadily on her feet. Her eyes finally left me to roam over the room, growing increasingly horrified as they took in each detail. I slowly brought my hands up, trying to find a way to calm her. Still strategizing, even as my life as I knew it came to an end.

"Deb, you should put down the gun. You're about to pass out."

"Are you fucking kidding me? You want me unarmed while I'm alone with the Bay Harbor Butcher?" I heard that edge of hysteria again in her voice and felt another stab of pain. I marveled at that last fact. I'd faced the possibility of Deb's death before, and I'd thought that had drawn the strongest reactions from me I was capable of having. But the look in her eyes right now was worse. I knew I was feeling something, but it was too large, too far beyond my experience for me to categorize or understand it.

"I would never hurt you, Deb. Remember, you were the first one to realize that the Bay Harbor Butcher—" the name felt distasteful in my mouth "—only kills murderers."

"It's still fucking SICK and WRONG and..." Her voice broke as her eyes finally left Hagerman and my stained clothes to return to my face beneath its plastic, blood-speckled mask. Whatever she saw there made any further protests dry up and she simply stared at me in mute horror.

"I know. Deb, you really should put that down before—"

"I've never passed out in my life," she snapped, and, even though it mostly consisted of anger directed at me, I was glad to see a glimpse of the old Deb again in this cracked figure with tears running steadily down her cheeks. But her sudden stumble belied her words. She grabbed blindly for one of the plastic tarps, ripping it from the cord it was attached to as she sank down to her knees and shattering the perfect little world I'd created for my time with Mr. Hagerman. I winced as the gun fell from her hands with a clatter and skittered across the ground to come to a rest almost at my feet.

I crossed over to her in two steps, but hesitated uncertainly, remembering my blood-covered hands.

"Shit," she murmured, blinking unseeingly up at me and groping for a gun that was no longer there as consciousness slowly receded. It looked like there was a first time for everything. I quickly pulled my gloves off and knelt beside her, placing one hand as gently as I could at the base of her neck to keep her from tumbling backwards. She still had enough presence of mind to flinch away from my touch and push her feet ineffectually against the concrete floor in an effort to get away from me, but her limbs were clearly no longer entirely under her control and wouldn't obey her.

"You'll be okay when you wake up. I promise." Finally she lost her inner battle, and her eyelids dropped.

I acted quickly after that. I couldn't afford to have her regain consciousness while I was still disposing of the body; I didn't think either Deb or I could handle that at this point. I found my tranquilizer, changed the needle on the syringe, and filled it with significantly less of the powerful drug than I would administer to one of my victims. Considering I frequently chopped people up, injecting them was certainly never a problem for me, and yet the sensation of sinking the needle into the back of Deb's arm, where I hoped she wouldn't notice the injection site, felt profoundly wrong.

I could work in relative peace, now, but I didn't have as much time as I would have liked. All thoughts of artistry and enjoyment were gone; my goal now was just to get the body and kill site broken down and packed away as quickly as possible.

Normally I would have switched from tool to tool during this part, but I stuck with the reciprocating saw as the most efficient option, crudely dismembering what was left of Hagerman and stuffing the pieces clumsily into the black Hefty bags. I was irritated to notice that my hands were trembling. I knew I should be using this time to plan what I would do when my sister woke up, but I couldn't seem to make my always calculating mind work properly as I packed my tools away and bundled up all the tarps, rubber sheets, and shredded plastic wrap. Deb's mute, but still accusing, presence made it impossible for me to think beyond the next step in the ritual.

I was probably never more careless and oblivious to possible witnesses than I was that night as I ferried the unconscious Deb and the bags of Mr. Hagerman to my boat, dumped the body, made my way back, and picked up my car again. I was distracted, checking on Deb every few minutes. I'd never been particularly concerned about the possible effects my chosen tranquilizer might have on my victims, but now I was constantly watching the steady rise and fall of her chest from the corner of my eye. I had another dose ready, placing it first on the dashboard and later at my feet on the deck, all the while debating with myself whether I should actually risk giving my sister more if she was to start waking up.

Fortunately, I never had to make that decision. She was still out cold when we reached my apartment, and all I could do was hope that there was no one to see as I carried her awkwardly inside and stretched her out on my couch. I left her only long enough to change my clothes, wanting to distance myself as much as possible from the Dexter she had seen at the factory. I also made sure her gun was stowed away deep in one of my dresser drawers—I didn't want her near that again tonight. Then there was nothing more for me to do but sit in the chair next to the couch and wait for her to wake up.

Only then was I able to think. But with no clear task ahead of me, I found disbelief and panic filling me again.

Deb was a good person and an honest cop. What could she do but turn me in? Could I bring myself to allow her to handcuff me and bring me into the station, in front of Angel, Masuka, LaGuerta, and the others? I'd always thought I didn't care about them, much less what they thought about me beyond maintaining my front, but I'd felt sick at seeing their expressions when I'd been brought in by the FBI a few months ago and thought their stunned looks of horror were directed at me rather than Doakes. Before that, my capture had been a vast, but undefined terror. Now I could picture how it would unfold in perfect detail. Could I go through that again?

But, as I looked at my sister's vulnerable face, finally relaxed in a drugged sleep, how could I do anything else? I'd given up a brother who accepted me for her sake; it looked like I would give up my own life, as well, if it came to that.

I was still chewing over this startling revelation that challenged all my assumptions about what I was when Deb finally stirred. She blinked up at my ceiling in confusion for a few moments, then suddenly her whole body spasmed. She sat up abruptly, grabbing her upper arms and looking around frantically.

"It's okay, Deb, everything's okay." She shot me a look of disbelief. "You're okay," I amended. She relaxed a fraction, which surprised me. What horror could her mind possibly have conjured up to rival my presence?

"I thought I was back there with you and Rudy," she muttered. "I was tied down just like you had… that man." Her eyes were widening, quickly filling with fear as she took in her situation. Alone, helpless, with her brother the serial killer.

"I would never do that to you, Deb," I rushed to assure her. It looked like I was going to be repeating myself a lot tonight, too. Her head jerked up, and there was a strange, smoldering anger in her gaze as she met mine.

"Don't fucking play with me. I've done this before, remember?"

"I'm not Rudy." I searched for something to say—I needed to make her focus on the Dexter she'd thought she'd known her whole life rather than the one she'd seen a few hours ago. "I'm still your brother, and you'll never be in any danger from me."

"You've lied to me our entire lives. What makes now any different?" I'd been somewhat prepared to defend my code and to use it to try to convince her that I wouldn't hurt her, but this I hadn't seen coming. I fell back on what was a surprising solution for me—the truth.

"I don't have any reason to, now. And if I wanted to hurt you, why would you be waking up unharmed on my couch?" Deb had always been blunt—maybe she would appreciate a similar directness from me.

"Because you sick psychos like to play mind games," she shot back, but the accusation seemed to lack conviction.

"I'm not playing games with you. I didn't plan for any of this to happen." She simply looked at me for a long moment as her anger faded to a blank numbness.

"But you are the Bay Harbor Butcher." She whispered it, like she was testing the concept out, and her face began to crumple again. That didn't seem to call for a response, but, when I didn't speak, her empty stare sharpened for a moment. "Say it. I want to hear you say it."

No point in denying it, now.

"Yes, I'm the Bay Harbor Butcher." She shuddered, opened her mouth to possibly swear again, closed it, and buried her face in her hands. That one demand seemed to have used up the last of her energy, and now she didn't even have the strength for fear. I'd never seen her like this, and I was more unsettled than I would have liked to admit. Her posture reminded me of a collapsed tent—something in which every support had been removed. Surprisingly, I could relate—a near first for me. I recognized in her all the alien feelings that had gone through me when I'd learned of Harry's suicide and the complete repudiation of the code I lived by that it represented, but her slumped shoulders and hunched back expressed that utter devastation far more completely and eloquently than my own feeble, underutilized emotions had even been able to experience. It left me shaken to realize that I had been my sister's constant as much as Harry had been mine. She'd said as much before, and I'd used the fact as a justification for my decision to frame Doakes, but only now did I fully realize what that meant.

"I'm sorry." I wasn't sure what precisely my apology was for, but I was sure that it was sincere. The silence stretched and I fidgeted slightly, not knowing what she wanted me to say, if anything. I finally just asked the question that was pressing on my mind.

"Are you going to arrest me?"

She snorted, somehow managing to make even that tiny noise sound wet and shattered. She must have been crying silently underneath her hands.

"Would I make it to the station? And would there be any evidence left to link you to tonight?" The words were muffled, spoken into her palms.

"Deb, I will not hurt you. No matter what you decide to do." I hoped I wouldn't have to say it again. Her head snapped up, and her red-rimmed eyes were blazing again over her damp cheeks.

"The Hell you wouldn't. You killed Doakes. You fucking BURNED him alive!" She was angry again, her body rigid and her chin raised, but I preferred enraged Deb to the broken Deb that had been sitting here a moment ago.

"Deb, I swear, I did not kill Doakes." She gave a derisive laugh of disbelief. I didn't see a hint of fear in her now as she furiously met my gaze, any concerns for her own safety swept away by her outrage at what I had supposedly done to our one-time colleague. I'd always known my sister, for all her lack of confidence and impetuous behavior, had an iron core, but this was the first time I'd seen it so clearly. I leaned forward, hoping my expression was earnest.

"Just hear me out, please? He figured out I was the… Bay Harbor Butcher. He took my slides to get them privately tested. When Lundy decided Doakes was the Butcher, Doakes came to confront me personally and caught me disposing of a body. We fought. I won." She wasn't going to like this next part. "I wasn't sure what to do, so I locked him in a cage in the cabin."

"You locked Doakes in a cage." Her voice was empty enough that I wondered whether she was masking a new sense of fear. What was to stop me from doing something similar to her?

I drew in a deep breath.

"Uh… yes. But it was only meant to be a temporary measure."

"Before you sent him to jail for the rest of his life? Or the chair? You framed him, Dex!" Deb was younger than me, unarmed, most definitely not a serial killer with dozens of victims to her name, and looked too weak with shock to stand. So how was it that I now found myself fighting the urge to squirm under her gaze like a misbehaving child?

"I just needed some time to work a few things out and set some of my affairs in order. Yes, I had set up everything to frame Doakes as the Butcher, but I wasn't sure I would go through with it. I… had actually decided to turn myself in." To you, I added, silently.

"But you didn't."

"No, not after what happened." No need to tell her I'd come to the decision to frame Doakes anyway before things had resolved themselves.

"So what are you saying did happen? If you didn't kill him, how did he die?"

"Lila."

"Lila killed Doakes." I nodded. "Why would she do that, Dex?" Her voice was flat, disbelieving.

"I'm honestly not entirely sure. She went to the cabin, learned I was the Bay Harbor Butcher." The name was coming more easily to me now. I wasn't sure that was a good thing. "I think she thought she was doing me a favor."

"And you just let Doakes take the fall."

"He was dead. He couldn't be hurt by it. I'd have been facing an electric chair too if I'd allowed myself to be caught." She brooded on that for a moment.

"What happened to Lila?"

No way around that one.

"I killed her." She winced, but didn't push that issue any further. She hadn't been Lila's biggest fan. I took the moment to shift the topic slightly, though not to a subject that was any less dangerous.

"Deb, I may be a monster sometimes, but I swear, I have never killed anyone who wasn't a murderer. Usually several times over. You have never been and never will be in any danger from me. If you want to turn me in, I won't do anything to stop you." I steeled myself. Time to address the other issue she'd brought up. "And as for there not being enough evidence to link me to tonight…" It went against all my instincts and training to do this, but I sensed I couldn't leave this situation half-resolved, with her hesitating to make a decision because she wasn't sure what my reaction would be or whether there 

would be enough evidence to connect me to my kills. I'd rather put it all on the line here and now than live with that kind of uncertainty again.

I got up and walked slowly over to the air conditioner, aware of her eyes on me the whole time. Watching me the way any human would watch a predator. I lifted off the front and pulled out the filter behind it, staring for a long moment at the slender box that might now hold my death in it as surely as it held the deaths of all my friends.

"What are you…" but she trailed off as I reached in and drew the box out. I sat down again carefully, placing it on the coffee table between us. Her jaw was visibly clenched, her face hard. I opened the lid, running my finger along the edge of the relatively short line of slides out of habit before taking tonight's slide out of my pocket and slipping it into the waiting slot. She closed her eyes, clearly not wanting to accept what she was seeing.

"Why are you showing me this, Dex?"

"Because I want you to know this decision is entirely yours. Everything you would need to link me to each of the criminals I've killed in the past months is in there." I sat back, feigning a calmness I didn't feel as the box lay open between us, baring the most intimate aspect of my life to her gaze. She followed my eyes to the slides. "I would like to try to explain some things first, though. If you'll let me."

"What is there to explain?" Her voice was soft again, hollow.

"Anything you want me to. Ask whatever you'd like. I'll answer it if I can, no lies or half-truths." Maybe just a few omissions. I wanted to be as honest as possible with Deb now that the one secret that had made all the others necessary was exposed, but I also didn't want the next time I saw daylight to be through a barred window if there was any way I could avoid it.

"You, volunteering information about yourself? That's a first." The corner of her mouth lifted slightly as she spoke, just a hint of an expression that faded almost immediately. I didn't think she was aware of the motion, but I took it as a hopeful sign. "So you've killed…" her eyes ran over the slides. "Four people since you lost your first box? And the first one had, what, over forty? Jesus, Dex."

I didn't have a response for that. And then she did the last thing I'd have expected—she reached out and drew tonight's slide from the box. Her distaste was evident on her face, but she balanced the tiny piece of glass carefully between her fingertips, looking down at the drop of fresh blood with an unreadable expression. My own throat felt tight. I'd never seen someone else handle my trophies—not even when they'd fallen into the hands of the FBI, as I'd been the one to process them. It was… strange, to say the least. I didn't have much time to ponder my own reactions to that sight, however, as she was talking again.

"You said you've only ever killed murderers. Why?"

I'd hoped we wouldn't get to this part so quickly.

"Dad. He recognized my urges when I was very young and he… taught me how to handle them, helped me to channel them in a way that would keep both me and the innocent people around me safe."

For several moments she simply stared at me.

"No. No fucking way. Dad didn't teach you to kill people."

"No, he didn't—What made me the way I am happened before he ever took me in. It isn't true that I don't remember anything from before he brought me home, and he didn't find me at the scene of an accident. It was a crime scene. I saw my mother murdered by three men with chainsaws and spent days sitting in her blood with the body." No need to tell her that those memories had only recently returned, or about Harry's role in my mother's death. "Dad thought it changed something inside me. Made me need to kill."

My eyes had drifted to the slides during my story, but now I looked back at Deb. Her face was stricken.

"Dex… I'm sorry." I shrugged slightly and went on.

"So, when Dad realized what I was, he gave me a code to live by that uses my needs as much for good as possible. He taught me how to be sure of the guilt of the people I hunted and how to avoid being caught."

"And you think only killing other murderers makes what you do okay?" Yes, I wanted to say. I cleaned up the streets, took out the trash. But somehow I doubted that was the answer she wanted, and so I hesitated, trying to decide how much of the truth I should tell. My pause was enough for her to guess the answer. "Never mind. But… _Dad_ taught you these things?"

"Some of them. Mostly the things that keep me from getting caught—the tarps and gloves and such that you saw tonight." Reminding her of the scene at the factory clearly hadn't been a good move; her face furrowed again and her grip tightened on the slide. I worried that she might break it. "He never helped me kill anyone."

"I just… can't imagine Dad doing those things." But, even as she denied it, I could see all the pieces falling into place as she remembered the times Harry and I had gone off together, forcing her to remain at home or with friends. My tendency to burn ants when I was a boy, my somewhat overenthusiastic passion for hunting as a teenager, and Harry always hushing and explaining away any doubts or uncertainties she had about me as we were growing up. Harry's own indignation when a killer went free.

Her inner struggle was visible as she rearranged her view of her entire childhood. She sniffled slightly, and I tensed, not sure how I should respond if she starting crying again. Would she want any comfort from me? Should I sit beside her like I had two nights ago, or would that just make things worse? I was spared from that decision as she visibly fought the reaction down. I couldn't help feeling a bit of pride on her behalf when, sooner than I would have believed possible, she went on with her interrogation.

"So do you feel anything? At all?" She knew what being a serial killer and a sociopath meant better than anyone.

"Yes." I was surprised to find I could honestly answer that one without hesitation. I couldn't have two years ago.

"Something for other people, I mean, not just enjoying your…" she gestured at the box. "…activities." I chuckled dryly at her euphemism, so like my own.

"Still yes. I used to think I couldn't, but lately… I first noticed it with Rita. Relationships had always been no more than a cover for me…" She winced at that. Remembering Rudy, no doubt. "But I found that I wanted to spend time with Rita and the kids, and not just for the sake of appearances." As I outlined what I was going to say next, I was faintly amused to note how reversed our positions were about to be from the usual situations in which Deb insisted on oversharing every detail of her love life. "Every time I've slept with a woman, it's brought any relationship I had with her to an end. Too obvious that Dexter wasn't entirely emotionally home, I guess." I felt laid bare to be speaking aloud the kinds of phrases that usually never left my inner monologues or my conversations with my playmates. Yet, as vulnerable as it made me, it wasn't entirely unpleasant. "But with Rita it's been different."

"Ok, that's enough on that subject," she said, hurriedly. Maybe she'd have a little more sympathy next time I didn't want to hear about her sex life. But would there ever be a next time? I'd never have thought I would hope so. "Anyway, I guess it's good to know I'm not the only one around here to have fallen for a serial killer."

Had she actually just made a joke? Deb looked as startled as I, and the tension in the room seemed finally to be easing a little as we fell into old rhythms. I felt strangely giddy for a moment—a very rare emotion for me. But I'd never imagined I would actually be able to sit here with my sister, all my secrets exposed, honestly revealing my thoughts to her and not sending her running from the room.

I hated to spoil the moment with what I was going to say next, but I hoped it would benefit me in the long run. This was dangerous material to bring up, but it had to be addressed sometime. Better sooner than later. "And then there was you. When Rudy took you… He'd known what I was and had been toying with me during the entire Ice Truck Killer investigation. Leaving things for me at the crime scenes, at my apartment. Teasing clues to his identity, which I could never quite put together." I saw the shock of that filter through her features. Fortunately no anger at me for concealing those facts seemed to be following on its heels. "It wasn't just bad luck on your part that he latched onto you, Deb. He was looking for a way to get at me. I'm sorry you got caught in the middle." Her empty look didn't change. Maybe all this had become too much for her to process. "When I finally realized who he was, and that you were alone with him… I realized beyond a doubt that I… care deeply for you, Deb."

The words felt awkward. I'd been more effusive in the past, of course, when I was merely pretending to be her loving, dutiful big brother and saying what was expected of me without ever examining to what degree the sentiments were true or false. But I could see in the mingled pain and acceptance my words produced on her face as that numbness broke that she knew this was, in many ways, the first time I'd ever spoken honestly to her in our lives. Her eyes were dry now, though, and no more questions seemed forthcoming.

"So… what are you going to do?" I asked, quietly. The question that all this came down to.

She didn't answer for a long time, just stared at the slide she held, slowly turning it over and over again in her fingers. The blood looked very bright every time it flashed against her chalky skin. She finally stopped, meeting my eyes. I held my breath, feeling my heart racing as it had when I'd first seen all my work coming to the surface on a TV screen. Then she reached out and carefully replaced the slide in its spot in the box. I couldn't mistake the symbolism of that gesture, and the air slid out of me in a long sigh.

"Thank you. I have to ask, though… Why?"

"Don't push your luck, Dex. I'm not sure myself." Fair enough. I nodded. "I guess it's mostly selfish. You're my brother, and you're the only family I have left. I can't give up my one relative, even if he is a serial killing, sociopathic vigilante." The last was said with a shadow of that familiar quirk on her lips, and in my relief I gave a surprisingly genuine laugh. Her eyes were still pain-filled, though.

"I won't lie and say I feel any remorse for what I've done. You know enough about what I am to know that I can't. But I am sorry that I've caused you any pain." She nodded slightly.

"I believe you. I probably shouldn't, but I do."

"Thanks."

"This doesn't mean that what you do isn't fucked-up and wrong, or that I don't wish you would stop."

"I know."

She reached out and closed the box, pushing it as far away from her as it could go on the little table.

"I think I want to go home now. Alone." It was a test, I knew. She wanted to see if I would really let her go. I'd be happy to, except…

"Uh, I'm not sure where your car is. I didn't see it at the factory…"

"Oh, shit. It's still at Hagerman's lab."

"Do you want a ride?" A little test of my own. She hesitated.

"Sure. Thanks."

--

The drive back to the lab was silent. It was an awkward silence, of course, but not as tense as it might have been. Deb's eyes were bruised with exhaustion, and, with her head leaning against the side window, they often drifted closed for a few moments. I felt a tiny spark of warmth at the fact that she was comfortable enough in my presence to let her guard down at least a little bit, even if she was clearly keeping herself from falling entirely asleep.

Everything I'd said to Deb about the moment she'd been on Brian's table being nothing less than a life changing incident for me were true, but I wondered whether I'd ever had more tender feelings towards her than I did right now, watching the continually shifting colors on her face as we passed streetlights and neon signs. "Tender." Now there was a word I'd never thought I would be applying to myself with anything but irony.

As I drove, I thought back over the things I'd been considering in the minutes before I'd subdued Hagerman. I hadn't been sure how I was going to satisfy that irresistible urge for connection safely. It looked like that choice had been taken out of my hands, but for once, I didn't mind. Even knowing that I was entirely at the mercy of my sometimes flighty sister, I felt more peaceful than I had in a long time. It was the peace of a silenced, satisfied need that was not much different than the peace killing brought me. I doubted Deb would appreciate the comparison, but there it was.

I wondered how far her acceptance would go. Would my little side job become a regular topic of conversation? Would we never mention tonight again? Even if the latter was the case, I thought it would be enough. Just knowing someone else out there knew the truth about me was sufficient. Of course, I hadn't told her everything about Brian's identity or the reason for Harry's death, but all that could wait. Maybe forever.

At the sound of a soft snore, I realized that, despite her intentions, my sister had fallen asleep. I risked reaching out one hand to brush the hair back from her face, startling myself with my own gesture. She didn't stir and, slightly embarrassed, I returned my hand to the wheel.

I would have to wake her up in just a few minutes, but for now, I let her sleep. She would have plenty to think about tomorrow morning.

We both would.

--The End--

**Notes:** _Thanks to everyone who has been reading, especially those of you who have left reviews! I've really appreciated all your comments!_


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